Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Warming strengthens food web effects of predator phenotypic variation
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences. University of Helsinki, Finland.
Show others and affiliations
Number of Authors: 72025 (English)In: Functional Ecology, ISSN 0269-8463, E-ISSN 1365-2435, Vol. 39, no 9, p. 2284-2299Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Intraspecific variation modifies ecological processes and ecosystem functioning. Still, we know relatively little of how the nature and strength of ecosystem effects caused by intraspecific variation may interact with climate change. We conducted a mesocosm experiment to test if, and to what extent, ocean warming modifies the ecological impacts of intraspecific variation in a predatory fish. The mesocosms consisted of a simplified coastal food web with threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as the top predator, from a population where two stickleback phenotypes with either complete or incomplete lateral armour plating coexist and display differentiated predation behaviour: The completely plated phenotype often feeds more on invertebrate herbivores compared with the incompletely plated phenotype. Presence of stickleback reduced biomass of arthropod shredders (crustaceans, insect larvae). Warming (+4°C) strengthened this predation, releasing benthic primary producers (diatoms) from top-down control, causing a trophic cascade. This trophic cascade was attributed to one of the plate phenotypes: the completely plated stickleback increased their predation on shredders under warming, while the incompletely plated stickleback instead decreased their predation. Diatom biomass responded accordingly: warming increased diatom biomass in the presence of completely plated stickleback but not when incompletely plated stickleback was present. Our results suggest that different plate phenotypes of threespine stickleback differentially affect lower trophic levels and that warming may exacerbate these cascading effects. These trait-dependent effects on trophic cascades highlight the consequences of intraspecific variation on ecosystem functioning. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. Vol. 39, no 9, p. 2284-2299
Keywords [en]
Baltic Sea, climate change, dietary divergence, Gasterosteus aculeatus, intraspecific variation, mesocosm, predator–prey dynamics, trophic interaction
National Category
Ecology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-246281DOI: 10.1111/1365-2435.70102ISI: 001530032000001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105010836391OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-246281DiVA, id: diva2:1994345
Available from: 2025-09-02 Created: 2025-09-02 Last updated: 2025-11-20Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Salo, TiinaDe Cervo, AndreaEklöf, Johan

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Salo, TiinaDe Cervo, AndreaEklöf, Johan
By organisation
Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant SciencesStockholm Resilience Centre
In the same journal
Functional Ecology
Ecology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 26 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf